Imaginary Media

On Imaginary Media

This project was originally commissioned in 2004 by De Balie, a cultural and political centre in Amsterdam, for a symposium in which participants attempted to "excavate the dream of the ultimate communication medium." It's a son et lumière extravaganza which uses spoken text, projections and music to explore the subject of what theorist and writer Eric Kluitenberg calls "techno-mysticism", the irrational beliefs we project onto new technologies. It's a pedagogical performance piece, which makes it appropriate fare in this, the Capital Centre, established to promote the cross-pollination of pedagogy and performance.

Basically the show is an illustrated lecture, but one which is more immersive than is normally possible in a classroom.

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"...all media are partly real and partly imagined. Without either actual or imaginary characteristics, media cannot function. More than mere 'extensions of man,' media — especially communications media — are endowed with a nearly sacred capacity for qualitative transformation of human relationships. Many of the limitations of everyday life, especially the trappings of interpersonal communication, are to be alleviated by technological apparatuses that promise seamless and immediate connection. However, as an adjunct to communication, like human relationships themselves, the machines are vulnerable and frail, inadequate, failing to achieve the tasks set out for them by their makers and users."

— Eric Kluitenberg, "Introduction to an Archaeology of Imaginary Media"